THE SHARON VICTORY: NEWS ANALYSIS

THE SHARON VICTORY: NEWS ANALYSIS; Old Soldier, New Battle

By DEBORAH SONTAG

Published: February 8, 2001

JERUSALEM, Feb. 7—
After a stubborn, lumbering climb over several decades to reach the Israeli political pinnacle, Prime Minister-elect Ariel Sharon must now move like a gazelle. He has little time to build a working coalition from an unruly Parliament, and the conflict with the Palestinians is not something that will go lightly to the back burner.

Mr. Sharon's words indicate that he wants to redefine himself and confound the world's expectations. He does not want to sit atop a narrow right-wing government, and he does not want to be a bull in a china shop diplomatically. He seeks to be tough and conciliatory and to last longer than the beaten Prime Minister Ehud Barak as the leader of this volatile land. But circumstances, partisan politics and his own adventurer's disposition could quickly undermine him.

Mr. Sharon's Likud Party holds only 19 seats in the 120-member Parliament. The right-leaning Likud and the left-leaning Labor used to be the two big voting blocs in the Parliament, but now they are shadows of their former selves amid a multiplicity of sectarian parties.

The patchwork Parliament was not remade on Tuesday in Israel's first election for the prime minister's office alone, and so it did not expand Mr. Sharon's tiny power base or become more manageable overnight.

Mr. Sharon's natural associates are indeed the right-wing members of the broader nationalist camp. But they are an internally combustible lot, especially given the mix of ultra-Orthodox and Russian immigrant parties whose constituencies are at opposite ends of the religious-secular divide. And they include far-right politicians who will seek to bring out the warrior in Mr. Sharon, and settlers' representatives who will urge him to defend forcefully and expand the settlement enterprise that he helped construct.

Hence, Mr. Sharon's election-night appeal to the Labor Party to join him in a unity government of the two major national parties.

With both national parties advocating peace with security, some argue that the distinctions between them have blurred and that they should forge a centrist government. Indeed, dovish Likudniks and hawkish Laborites are ideologically indistinguishable.

But others think that the center has collapsed during the turmoil of the last half year, after the failed Camp David peace talks and the subsequent violence, and that it cannot be or should not be artificially recreated. Instead, they say, the peace path of the veteran doves, with their continued desire to pursue an end to the conflict, should be clearly distinguished from Mr. Sharon's preference for a long-term interim arrangement with the Palestinians.

If the Labor Party were to engage in uncustomary soul-searching after Mr. Barak's lightning resignation as leader on Tuesday night, there might be a genuine ideological debate about such concerns. But the party may well just sink into an internal succession struggle between personalities and not schools of thought. Avraham Burg, the Parliament speaker, already announced his candidacy today, and the race was on.

Mr. Sharon has thus extended an invitation to a leaderless opposition party that will be distracted by internal primaries, thinking as much about its own future as about the country's. And there is a strong current inside Labor that says Mr. Sharon should be allowed to fall on his face, whatever the cost to the country.

By law, Mr. Sharon has 45 days to form a coalition, during which time Mr. Barak remains caretaker prime minister. Israeli law also stipulates that the 2001 budget must be passed by an absolute majority of the Parliament by the end of March. If either condition is not met, the Parliament will be dissolved and the country thrown once more into elections. To avoid this, Mr. Sharon's goal is to establish a coalition as soon as possible, but his haste is not Labor's, which may mean that he forms a narrow government and leaves ministerial positions empty in the hope that Labor could join in the future.

Some forces on the right are eager for Mr. Sharon to take over and show the Palestinians what he is made of. ''We are facing a real war,'' said Shlomo Filber, secretary general of the Settlers' Council. ''A Likud official who is slated to be a minister told me this morning: 'Until now, this was child's play. Now, it's the real story.' ''

Indeed, some settlers moved quickly this morning to celebrate Mr. Sharon's victory by sinking new roots in the West Bank, thus entangling his political decisions with his diplomatic ones. Palestinian officials say that settlers moved five trailers onto land that is part of the Halhul village in the Hebron area.

''The settlers are happy with Sharon's victory, and if he didn't provide them with a green light, they wouldn't do it,'' said Mohammed Mashal, the deputy mayor of Halhul. ''We feel that the settlers will start a wild campaign and this will inflame the intifada.''

While Yasir Arafat sent a congratulatory note to Mr. Sharon today, the Palestinian leader's Fatah organization dubbed the prime minister-elect a ''relentless butcher'' and published a petition that urged Palestinians to return to the streets and confront Israeli troops. Mr. Arafat told Mr. Sharon that he hoped they could work together toward peace, but Fatah said the Palestinian leadership should not negotiate with Mr. Sharon and called on Arab leaders to isolate him diplomatically.

Mr. Sharon's stated objectives in peace talks -- to keep Jerusalem united under Israeli sovereignty, to keep the settlements where they are, to hold on to the Jordan Valley -- are inimical to serious negotiations, Palestinian officials say. So it is difficult to contemplate how there could be anything but a prolonged diplomatic stalemate ahead, unless Mr. Sharon persuades the Palestinians to engage in talks about the moment -- about lifting the closure of Palestinian territories and easing their economic suffocation in exchange for renewed security cooperation, for instance.

It remains to be seen how Mr. Sharon will respond to violence, to renewed rioting or to terror attacks. Mr. Sharon has said that he will not conduct peace negotiations against a blood-soaked backdrop, which many here wholeheartedly endorse. But others believe that this empowers anti-peace forces in the Arab world.

In the face of a resurgent wave of violent demonstrations in the West Bank or an across-the-border raid up north, Mr. Sharon would have to balance his desire to restore calm, pursue peace and develop positive international relations with his pledge to respond to violence more decisively than Mr. Barak. Many here think that Mr. Sharon wants to redeem his legacy and establish himself as a wise statesman; they do not think he wants to hurl recklessly into regional war. Yet his predilection to use force, as demonstrated in the past, is sure to be tested.

So Mr. Sharon faces a mined path ahead that requires nimble political, diplomatic and military skills as well as feats of self-control.

''The turnabout yesterday switches the focus of decision making in Israel from the left to the right,'' Nahum Barnea wrote in the Yedioth Aharonoth newspaper today. ''It does not change the harsh reality in which the country finds itself. The crisis which brought Sharon to the government could, within a few months, send him home to retirement, as well.''